From the “Right to the City” to the Right to the Nation

Abstract

The chapter draws attention to the passage from the “right to the city” (according to Henri Lefebvre’s expression) to the right to the nation. Somalis settled in Johannesburg can have multiple national identities, such as those who came from Europe and North America in order to find a better religious life, along with better business opportunities, in a Somali enclave of the city. Others among Somalis and in the majority are refugees who struggle and hope to be recognised as South African citizens in the future. Both categories—documented Somali migrants and refugees—might unsettle the South African state or reinforce its policies of sustainable communitarism, which is the basis of the privatisation of the state in this new age of neoliberalism.